0:15

Pushkin Describing

0:20

Bruce Springstein as a great American singer

0:23

songwriter is a massive understatement.

0:25

He's the boss, and at this point,

0:28

five decades into his remarkable career,

0:31

Bruce Springsteen is also a

0:33

national treasure. His

0:35

voice is unmistakable. Classic

0:38

anthems like Born to Run, Hungry

0:40

Heart, and jungle Land defined

0:42

to the American working class psyche in the

0:44

seventies and eighties. Today,

0:47

Bruce has reached rarefied air. He

0:49

sold more than one hundred and fifty million

0:51

albums worldwide, and he's won

0:54

twenty Grammys, and at seventy

0:56

one years old, there's still no

0:58

stopping. He recorded his

1:00

latest album, Letter to You, with the E Street Band

1:03

in just four days. The

1:05

album dives deep into the theme of loss

1:08

and also includes three songs that Bruce wrote

1:10

fifty years ago. In this

1:12

interview with Malcolm Gladwell and Rick Rubin, Bruce

1:15

Springsteen talks about how his Irish and

1:17

Italian sides have physically manifested

1:19

into songs over the years. He

1:21

also describes the moment when Barack Obama gave

1:24

him the idea for his intimate Broadway show,

1:26

and how listening to Born to Run forty five years

1:28

after it was released, made Bruce realise

1:31

just how good he really is. This

1:36

is broken record liner notes for the

1:38

digital age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's

1:41

Malcolm Gladwell, Rick Rubin and

1:43

Bruce Springsteen. Congratulations

1:46

on the new album. Thank you, my friend.

1:50

It's really good. Thank

1:52

you, Thank you very much. I

1:54

appreciate it. Is it the first time

1:56

that you recorded live with the band

1:58

in this way? We have had

2:01

instances where it

2:04

was not uncommon for us to get

2:06

the band and track in the studio

2:09

and then overdub instruments,

2:12

replace instruments, and over re

2:15

sing vocals, and that was

2:17

a pretty common way for us to record

2:19

in the seventies, and we would occasionally

2:22

hit something where it

2:24

was completely live. The record

2:26

Darkness on the Edge of Town is completely

2:28

live born in the USA. That

2:31

one cut is completely live, but

2:33

it would it was a bit of an exception,

2:36

and so we've never had a

2:38

situation where we've brought the entire

2:40

band in, restricted ourselves

2:43

to simply the instruments that are

2:45

in the band, and then cut

2:47

everything live, including the lead

2:49

vocal at one time, and

2:51

we did three hours a song,

2:54

two songs a day. Amazing,

2:56

amazing, and both

2:59

Darkness and Born to Run took a

3:01

year more to record. Yeah,

3:04

they Born to Run was a good six

3:06

or no, probably a year. Born

3:09

in the USA was a year. Darkness on the

3:11

Edge of Town was a year. They were all long

3:13

records because I was searching for

3:16

the record. That wasn't the recording that took

3:18

a long time. It was the fact that

3:20

I was searching for my album

3:23

in the midst of say twenty

3:25

thirty forty songs and

3:29

trying to find out what I had to say,

3:31

so that

3:34

in this case I had basically

3:37

I think I might have one outtake from this record

3:39

or something, but it's all bay. These

3:42

were the songs that I had. They

3:44

all congealed because I wrote them within

3:47

about ten days. Wow, is that unusual

3:50

for that to happen a big group of songs

3:52

in a short period of time. Had

3:55

a record Nebraska where I did that about

3:58

three weeks. I had a record

4:00

Tunnel of Love, where I wrote most

4:02

of the songs in about three weeks.

4:04

But it's also not in common to

4:07

spend a year and a half trying

4:09

to find an album. So when

4:11

the when the when the stars are aligned,

4:14

those songs come in a

4:17

conceptual package and

4:19

you know, the gods are with you and it

4:22

doesn't take long. Do the lyrics

4:25

typically come first or

4:27

did the chords come first?

4:29

Is there any rule in the way that songs come

4:31

to you? No? No. When

4:34

I was younger, I would write the

4:36

lyrics as poetry.

4:39

All my first album, almost all

4:41

of the lyrics came first because

4:43

I had in my mind that I was that

4:45

kind of a writer and so, and the

4:48

lyrics were much more dense

4:51

and a lot more imagery.

4:53

And that was the only

4:55

record where really I would say I wrote

4:57

lyrics first everything else.

4:59

Sometimes I start with music sometimes

5:02

that you know, more often you have

5:04

a line, or if you pick

5:06

the guitar up and you

5:09

know you're lucky. If if you get a title, if

5:11

you get a good title, you're on your way.

5:15

But sometimes you just pick the guitar up

5:18

and it comes out of your mouth. You know that

5:20

that moment is a moment that

5:23

I have never heard anyone

5:26

able to explain. I don't believe it's

5:28

explainable, you know, And

5:30

that's why it's creative. That's why

5:32

it's magic. You know. You take at that moment

5:35

something that is totally not physical,

5:38

that is simply emotional, spiritual,

5:44

somewhat intellectual and

5:46

in the air becomes physical.

5:49

It manifests itself as a physical

5:51

piece of music. But what

5:54

happens at that moment I've never

5:56

heard anybody describe. Yeah, it's a

5:58

miracle. It's unbelievable when you get to

6:00

witness it happening. And do you experience

6:03

it? I mean when we hear your

6:05

words often were

6:07

moved to tears when they

6:10

come to you, do they hit you in that emotional

6:12

way or do you hear them more? As

6:15

these are good lyrics, this makes sense,

6:17

I like the story. Do you feel

6:19

it the way the listener feels it? Or is it even possible

6:21

for you to know? Now I have one

6:23

leg being the

6:26

creator, and I have another one that's

6:28

the audience, and they're there

6:30

simultaneously. And if I

6:32

come up with something that's moving, I

6:34

think I feel the same response even

6:37

while I'm creating it, that the audience

6:40

is going to feel. You know, So

6:42

you're both you're both creator

6:44

and audience simultaneously,

6:47

and partially by being

6:49

the audience, it's assisting you in judging

6:51

the quality of what you've done.

6:54

Yeah, it's a great feeling, that feeling

6:56

of I guess that's the reason we do it. It's

6:59

the best feeling in the world. There's nothing

7:01

like that moment when you go there,

7:04

it is goddamn. I knew I had one more

7:06

in me, you know. It's

7:08

one of those moments. And

7:10

leading up to this album, how much was planned

7:13

before the songs came in?

7:15

Other words, did the songs lead the charge or

7:17

were you thinking, I really want to make an album.

7:19

It's been a while. What do you feel like? Well,

7:22

I may feel like I may go My

7:24

work with the E Street Band

7:27

is cyclical, so I'll

7:29

work on some solo projects, but I

7:31

will cycle my way back around to feeling

7:34

like, Okay, I want to work with

7:36

my band, I want to make an album.

7:38

For lack of a better word, rock music and

7:43

timing, you know, so you start to get

7:45

hungry. It's like getting hungry for a

7:47

steak, you know. It's like, Okay,

7:49

I think I'm hungry for a steak tonight, you

7:51

know. And it's a similar thing. You get

7:54

hungry to work with the guys. You get

7:56

hungry to make a certain kind of music, to

7:58

reach a certain type of audience. And

8:02

it's more of an inner

8:04

drive that that that's

8:06

the first thing that you experience and

8:09

then if you're lucky, you know you'll

8:11

catch a metaphor you'll catch a title, You'll

8:13

catch the lines, and songs start to lead

8:15

the way. Is there a difference between the

8:18

way you write for the EA Street Band and the way you do

8:20

solo things? If

8:22

you take say my last two records,

8:26

I made a record called Western Stars,

8:28

and if you if you looked at the characters

8:31

on that record, there's a very isolated

8:33

sort of American persona that I wrote

8:36

from. And if you, if you judge

8:38

it, with this record, I'm in the middle of a community

8:41

on this record. So when

8:43

I work with the band, very

8:46

often, I'll be writing from the inside

8:48

of a community. Outward, when

8:51

I work on my own, I'm

8:53

studying that sort of isolated American

8:57

part of the American character, so it

9:00

will thematically, I'll

9:02

move in different places. Can you

9:04

describe the sort of a little more about

9:06

the emotional feeling

9:08

of those two I mean, is writing

9:10

a song in E Street mode? When

9:12

you say when you're writing inside a community, is that satisfying

9:15

in a different way? Does it feel differently

9:17

in the moment. It's funny because

9:19

I'm sitting there by myself, but I'm

9:22

imagining this entire sort

9:25

of community around me, and

9:28

I'm imagining a different world

9:31

than the world that I imagine when I'm

9:33

writing for a solo project.

9:36

It's just a different place you put your head,

9:38

you know. You just travel to a different

9:41

sort of emotional geography,

9:45

you know, and you place yourself in that

9:47

world, and you're

9:50

relating to everything differently. You're

9:52

relating to the people in the songs differently,

9:55

And I know that eventually I'm going

9:57

to actually physically be in the center

9:59

of that world, which is when I'm at the

10:01

center of my band and we're about to

10:03

perform or about to record

10:05

this music. And so it's

10:09

a bit of a preparation for

10:12

actually initially

10:15

being in that world within the band and

10:17

then going out and playing that music and

10:19

being within that world within your

10:21

audience. Whereas when I'm

10:23

performing or writing

10:25

for a solo project, I may or may

10:27

not tour. I'm really

10:30

character driven and

10:34

writing from a more another

10:37

part of my personality. I guess the way I would

10:39

describe it as I'm writing from the

10:41

Irish side of my personality, which

10:44

is moodier and darker

10:46

and gloomier. And when I'm writing for the band,

10:49

I'm writing from the Italian side of

10:51

my personality, which is Hale

10:53

brother. Well you know, well met

10:56

you know, so

10:57

uh so useful to have those

10:59

two sides, it is. I was

11:02

very lucky, you know. My father was

11:04

very Irish in personality and my mother

11:06

was totally Italian, and

11:09

I sort of absorbed both

11:11

of their approaches towards

11:13

life, and when I became creative,

11:16

I really drew on both

11:18

of their sort

11:21

of all of our ethnic background. There.

11:24

You've talked about your dad's depression, yeah,

11:26

and that you've you have

11:29

some of those seeds in you, oh

11:31

yeah. And what are the things that have helped

11:34

you to move through those And when was your

11:36

first experience of recognizing,

11:38

oh, I have this too. I

11:40

hit a wall when I was thirty two years

11:43

old. I

11:45

wrote Nebraska, And

11:47

after Nebraska, I traveled across

11:50

the country with a friend of mine and

11:52

it was on that trip that I realized

11:55

something was amiss. I

11:58

was always able to count on the miles,

12:01

the music to a suage,

12:03

whatever my demons

12:05

were, but on that trip it was

12:07

the first time for some reason where it felt

12:09

like it's just not doing the

12:11

job. And when I got to La

12:14

I was completely an

12:17

anxious mess and

12:20

I had no idea what to do with myself

12:22

next, and all

12:25

I knew was I need help. I've

12:27

hit the wall. I don't know where to go with this. My

12:29

usual remedies that worked in my twenties,

12:32

music, this, that, touring,

12:35

traveling are not working for

12:37

me anymore. I've got to find another

12:39

answer. And I began analysis

12:42

when I was thirty two. I did it for

12:44

thirty years. Change your life,

12:46

Yes, absolutely, it gave me

12:49

the rest of my life, you know,

12:51

the fulfillment of family,

12:53

of love and being able

12:55

to be loved, of delving

12:59

deeper into your own history

13:01

and your own essence, and that

13:05

affecting your creativity. It gave me

13:07

another The

13:10

way that I would describe it as you sort

13:12

of you're standing

13:14

in front of a brick wall and you think

13:16

you're seeing all that the world is,

13:19

and then suddenly you start pushing

13:21

and suddenly a brick drops out

13:24

and you look through into this complete

13:26

other experience and existence

13:28

and you go, fuck, you

13:32

know WHOA I've

13:34

been living on such a limited

13:36

level and it just

13:38

expands your expanded my vision.

13:41

It also helped it

13:43

helped rid me of my depression. That

13:45

and also pharmacology

13:47

has played a big part in giving

13:49

me my life back, and that's

13:52

been very important. Also, it affect

13:54

your writing, I imagine. No,

13:57

I have never noticed that my

13:59

depression ever affected my writing,

14:01

or that any medications I've ever taken

14:04

affected my writing. When I

14:06

was deeply, deeply, deeply depressed,

14:08

I could always still work and write.

14:11

For some reason, it never affected that

14:13

part of my creative

14:15

life or personality. I'm

14:17

almost asking the other way around, like, do you look

14:20

at the songs you wrote pre therapy as

14:23

written by a smaller

14:26

aspect of who you are, and that

14:28

through therapy you've expanded

14:30

your vision. I don't know if that's I'm leading.

14:32

That's a leading question. Yeah it is,

14:35

and I can tell you that no, I don't because

14:37

I look back and I The

14:39

forty fifth anniversary of Born

14:42

to Run was about a week

14:44

or two ago, and so I was with a buddy

14:46

of mine and I said, Hey, I'm going to do an anniversary

14:48

cruise. I'm play Born to Run start to finish.

14:50

I was like, okay. So Sunday morning, we

14:52

got in a car, put it on, and

14:55

I realized, that's one of the best records I've ever

14:57

made. You know, Yeah, if

14:59

I listened to Nebraska, I go, that's one

15:01

of the best records I ever made, so

15:05

the dealing with my own personal

15:08

depression. The material

15:10

I wrote previous to that

15:13

really was unscathed and untouched

15:16

and did and it did not limit the scope

15:19

of my writing in any way,

15:21

in any real way, I wrote. I

15:23

look back and say, some of my best records were pre pre

15:26

analysis and post analysis.

15:29

Has music inspired

15:31

your writing more than anything else? Or has literature

15:34

played a role in lyrics

15:36

and song structure for you? Everything

15:39

I learned musically

15:41

I probably learned between nineteen

15:44

sixty five and nineteen sixty

15:46

eight, between when I was fifteen

15:49

and eighteen, I was a student,

15:52

an astute student of Top forty

15:54

radio, where the masters

15:57

of songwriting and record making

15:59

were existed at that moment

16:01

in time. I studied that like

16:04

it was for my master's degree,

16:06

and I would say that baby

16:09

into the early seventies, but shortly

16:11

thereafter I stopped looking

16:14

towards music for specific

16:17

information, and I began in

16:20

the late seventies to get more

16:22

inspiration from reading a

16:25

lot of film, a lot of noir, James

16:29

M. Kin, Flannery O'Connor, Jim

16:31

Thompson, and from watching

16:34

films john Ford and Howard

16:36

Hawks, and a

16:38

lot of film noir. So

16:42

I began to get a lot

16:44

more inspiration from literature and film

16:46

the older that I got. Just talk

16:49

a little bit about more about this album.

16:51

Many things fascinating about it, but one

16:53

was that you include a number of songs

16:56

from way back when. Yeah,

16:59

First of all, what was behind

17:01

that decision? Start with that, why? Why?

17:04

Why did you? Why did you want to put these? Particularly

17:07

if I was the priest. As most

17:09

creative things, it's

17:11

a non decision. I

17:13

don't operate from deciding

17:16

first. I operate from

17:18

an internal hunger

17:21

and my decisions come from

17:24

there. So in this case, I

17:26

happened to record a song that's on the

17:28

record called Janey Needs a Shooter, and

17:30

I recorded it. I said, I'm going to record this for a record

17:33

day in the United States. You put one song

17:35

out, but I recorded it with the

17:37

band the way that we cut darkness on the Edge

17:39

of Town, and it sounded like darkness

17:41

on the Edge of Town, and I said, Wow, that's how

17:44

the band really sounds when

17:46

we play live. And I haven't

17:48

caught that in the studio in a long

17:50

time. And so I'm going to keep

17:52

this for some future album, and

17:55

so having one song that was

17:57

forty five years old. I then

18:00

was working on a box set of

18:03

outtakes, the first

18:05

of which was an entire album

18:08

of songs I cut for John

18:10

Hammond when he asked me to make

18:12

a demo. He produced a demo for me when

18:15

I first went to Columbia. These

18:17

songs were amongst those songs, and

18:19

I said, well, a couple of these might be fun for the band

18:22

to play. So it just kind

18:24

of fell into place, and when

18:26

we played them, they were a lot of fun to play,

18:28

and the band came up with great

18:31

arrangements for them, and and that's

18:33

how they ended up on the record. Why didn't

18:35

these songs make it onto earlier records

18:37

just by chance or no? It's

18:39

like, you know, you're you're so fickle

18:42

as an artists are so fickle, you know they

18:45

you know you have this music and then you

18:47

write something new and boom, you forget

18:49

about that and you're onto the next thing.

18:51

By the time I had a chance to record

18:54

my first album, i'd

18:56

already made an album

18:59

that but I put that one

19:01

aside because I had new music and I

19:03

wanted to put what was what I had newest

19:05

out and so there

19:08

was an album was pre Greetings

19:10

from Asbury Park that was all

19:12

of this acoustic music with this type of lyric

19:14

writing, and more than an album,

19:16

almost two albums and an album and a half that

19:19

never got released. How

19:21

does it feel, too, for the first

19:23

time release song that you wrote years

19:26

ago? Yeah, the song, the two songs

19:28

if I were the priest and song for obums

19:30

fifty years old, and it

19:33

felt like I wrote them yesterday, except except

19:35

I wouldn't write in that style now. You know that

19:38

very verbose, heavy amount

19:40

of images. I just don't write that way

19:42

anymore. I write more colloquially, and

19:46

so it was kind of fun to

19:48

wrap my head around, you

19:50

know, singing all those words again. I realized,

19:53

gee, this was really a great part of my

19:55

writing, my writing

19:57

life, and I kind of left it too soon

20:00

because of the new Dylan comparisons.

20:02

I got sensitive about it, and I put

20:04

it away a little too soon, because really

20:07

I kind of had my own style of

20:09

writing in that style, and

20:13

looking back, I said, I wouldn't have mind making

20:15

another record or two in that style. But I

20:18

was very sensitive to I was young, sensitive

20:21

about creating my own identity, and

20:23

so I left that style of writing behind

20:25

rather quickly. You hear it on the first three

20:28

albums, and you hear it less each

20:30

album, you know, and by the time

20:32

I get the darkness, I'm done with it.

20:35

There's still time to make those albums,

20:37

you know. I know I got all the

20:39

materials sitting there. I may do that. So

20:42

you played if I was a priest for Hammond. You were

20:44

auditioning for Hammond. Yes, one

20:47

of the most legendary figures in rock

20:49

and roll history. Could you take us back to

20:51

that moment? Were you scared? I

20:54

was on the elevator going up

20:56

to what might have been the thirtieth floor

20:58

in Black Rock, which was

21:01

with my manager and he John

21:03

Hammond, to give you an idea what the

21:06

record business was like. We're seeing

21:08

no buddies who he did not know

21:11

at all off the streets of New

21:13

York City, who simply talked

21:15

their way through. His secretary Michapelle

21:18

was very good at that and he did it. So

21:22

here we have. We've got a thirty

21:24

minute audition with John Hammond. We

21:26

go up. On the way up, I'm going,

21:28

well, it's like this, I have

21:31

nothing. When I come back, I'm

21:33

not going to have any less than I have right

21:36

now, so I'm trying

21:38

to talk myself into not being nervous.

21:41

It almost worked, but not quite.

21:44

What else did you play for him? Do you remember I

21:46

played? If I were

21:48

the priest? I played The first song I played

21:51

for him was It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City,

21:53

which ended up on my first record, and I

21:55

believe I played a song for him called Growing

21:57

Up. I only played about three

22:00

songs and he and after I played

22:02

I played one song, and he said, you

22:04

gotta be on Columbia Records. Wow, oh

22:06

wow, it was that. It was

22:09

that sudden. He didn't wait to hear the

22:11

second one. I played the first, So you gotta be on

22:13

Columbia Records. I

22:15

said, okay. We

22:18

always invite the people we interview on broken

22:20

record to play little

22:22

bits of songs that they want to I

22:25

would love I'd love to hear a piece of whatever

22:27

you want. But I was going to suggest, if

22:29

I was a priest, can we recreate the John Hammond

22:31

audition here? Oh man, I

22:33

don't know. I don't I don't know if I even

22:36

know those words. I know, because

22:38

there's a yeah wait.

22:41

John Hammond apparently said the minute

22:44

he heard that song, he knew you were a Catholic. Oh

22:46

yeah, yeah, he was really excited

22:48

about it. That's what he loved. He

22:50

loved the screwed up Catholicism in it. Wait,

22:54

it was he Catholic? I don't know.

22:57

I don't know. I don't think so it's funny

22:59

that he could spot it right away. Yeah,

23:03

but you're a You're a double cat, like you're a

23:05

special breed with Italian one side,

23:07

Irish on the other. You're like a You're like the

23:09

most powerful kind of Catholic hybrid.

23:12

Yeah. We're steep steeped, steeped,

23:14

steeped in it. So it's

23:16

my lot in life. We'll be back with

23:19

Bruce Springsteen after a quick break.

23:25

We're back with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell

23:28

and Bruce Springsteen. How is your

23:30

spiritual life now? What's your spiritual life

23:32

like? Uh? I don't

23:34

think about it very much. I guess if if

23:36

I look at it, i'd say it comes through in my music,

23:39

you know. And and then and just the

23:41

general your general behavior

23:43

during the day. Uh, and

23:46

what you see reflected in your children as

23:48

to how well you've done and how well

23:50

you've lived over the years. You know. I

23:53

got some solid citizens

23:56

that we've raised and makes Patty

23:58

and I proud, And they got good

24:00

inner their inner core

24:02

is strong and and

24:05

and righteous, and uh

24:07

so we go, well, we must have something right,

24:09

you know, we must be. We didn't. We

24:11

had no dogma or religion,

24:14

but we just had a way of living

24:16

that I hope passed on a little bit of

24:18

righteousness for them. And so

24:21

uh if I if I observe

24:23

it in any way, it's purely through listening

24:26

and looking back at my songs and seeing

24:29

where they were influenced by my

24:31

Catholic faith and and or

24:34

by a spirituality in general.

24:36

I basically consider myself a spiritual

24:39

songwriter in that primarily

24:41

I want you to dance. I want to entertain

24:44

you. I want you to listen to my music and wash

24:46

your clothes and and and

24:48

vacuum your floor. And I'm also

24:50

trying to address your soul. So beautiful

24:54

and this album, I mean, it's a powerful

24:57

steam of loss in

24:59

this album. Yeah you

25:01

talk, I mean you you have lost a lot of people close

25:04

to you over the last few years. Well, you know,

25:07

death is funny because when

25:09

you're Italian and Irish,

25:12

you get very used to death. When you're

25:15

very young because of the wakes, you

25:17

know, I was too many

25:20

wakes when I was six, seven, eight,

25:22

nine, ten years old, where the body

25:24

is just in the room for days at a time and

25:26

people are drinking and laughing and visiting

25:30

and everyone's excited to be together. And

25:34

I went through a lot of that as a child. And

25:36

then you leave home, you reach

25:38

your twenties, and for a long time, unless

25:41

there's something unusually tragic, death is

25:43

not a big part of your life twenties,

25:45

thirties, even forties. But once

25:47

you get into your fifties, sixties and seventies,

25:50

it rears its head again and

25:52

people begin to die from natural causes

25:55

and from illnesses, and it

25:58

becomes once again at a part of your

26:00

life. And so it's become a natural

26:02

part of my writing life. Also, is

26:05

there a song? Do you have a favorite on this album?

26:07

I like the House of a Thousand To Tell Ours is

26:10

one of my favorites. How do you

26:12

choose a favorite song? Like? What is it that? What are the

26:14

criteria that in your own mind makes

26:16

something a song special? I knew

26:18

when I was writing it. I knew that,

26:21

uh, there was just something

26:23

to it that spoke to me, you know,

26:25

Uh, and while I was writing,

26:28

I said, oh, that's a great title.

26:36

Yeah, I just said, House of a Thousand

26:38

Guitars is a great title. If I can write

26:40

a song and make that title work,

26:43

I'm good, you know. So

26:46

so I got very excited about it and

26:48

finished the song. You know, it

26:50

addresses the world that I've

26:53

attempted to create with my fans

26:55

and audience and amongst my band

26:57

and and uh and

27:01

and and just the world at

27:03

large, you know. And so it was

27:06

it's just my it's it's just one of my favorite

27:08

songs. Record as

27:10

your relationship to any

27:13

of the songs changed over time, like

27:15

you said, you did ah listen

27:17

to Born to Run recently for

27:19

the forty fifth anniversary, and when you listen

27:22

back, I know you liked it. Did it did

27:24

anything strike you as surprising

27:27

or did any of the meanings change? What was

27:29

the experience like? The experience was

27:31

like, damn, I was good when I was twenty

27:33

four years old, you

27:35

know, it was like and sort

27:37

of being surprised. One thing I was surprised

27:40

at is how well it was recorded. It

27:42

really, when I played it back, it sounded

27:44

quite modern. And then I

27:47

was a little shocked at the depth

27:49

and detail of the music

27:52

that I was writing at that age, because

27:54

I didn't really play that well. I mean

27:56

I had a little Aolian Spinnett piano

27:59

that was half out of tune, and

28:01

I wrote all of those introductions

28:04

to jungle Land to Backstreets, Meeting

28:06

across the River. Born to was

28:09

written largely on piano, which

28:11

is why Roy Bitten plays such a stellar

28:14

role on the record, because I wrote

28:16

most of the songs on the piano, and

28:19

so I think I went back and it was

28:22

it was just fun to realize, Wow, I was

28:24

really, I was really. My

28:27

musical tastes and abilities were

28:29

quite sophisticated for when I was so

28:31

young, because I probably wrote most of Born

28:34

to Run when I was just twenty four, and we recorded

28:37

it and released it when I was twenty five. And

28:39

you play those songs, you play many of those songs

28:42

live over the years, but you probably

28:44

don't have much opportunity or reason to

28:46

go back and listen to the album.

28:48

No, I probably I didn't listen to the record.

28:51

I think I listened to it on its

28:53

fortieth anniversary, but before

28:56

that probably not in twenty years was

28:58

there any moment in listening to it where you

29:00

were taken it back, where you heard something that you

29:02

don't remember it was there, or something

29:04

it took you by surprise. No,

29:07

I think it was just when I listened to

29:09

the thing, to listen to it and its entirety,

29:12

how complete and full it was, and

29:15

how well conceived it was, given

29:19

how young I was. You know, if

29:22

I hear one of the cuts, I go, yeah, it's pretty good.

29:24

But if I hear the album and its entirety, I

29:26

go, it's a little better than that. Do

29:29

you do you ever realize anything about yourself

29:31

looking back on the songs? Yeah,

29:34

your songs are generally out in front

29:36

of your personal development. They're

29:38

like a divining rod. You know. What

29:42

you write about is something you sort of

29:45

you're the self realization can

29:47

come a year or six

29:49

months or two years. Oh fuck, look I

29:51

knew this back two years ago, but it

29:54

was in this song, and I didn't

29:56

really realize that about myself, you know, for

29:58

that period of time. So your inner

30:01

life, you're subconscious, tends

30:03

to be out in front of your self awareness,

30:05

which is pretty much the same with everybody.

30:09

In my case, I record it, I actually

30:11

record that subconscious and

30:13

then have a chance to go back and and

30:15

and literally look

30:18

at it and realize that it

30:20

took me a while to get there personally. Would

30:22

you say most songs start from the subconscious

30:25

and then work their way up or

30:27

or do some songs just start intellectually

30:30

for you? Uh? Anything

30:32

that starts intellectually usually sucks.

30:35

Uh. You know, I almost I

30:37

almost always depend on

30:40

uh some on some inner life

30:43

sending a message to my brain to

30:45

get active and to employ

30:47

the mechanics that I've learned

30:49

over and the craft I've learned over

30:52

the years. But it always comes out of

30:54

the heart and soul first. So

30:56

Uh, that's that's

30:58

that's generally the process of my writing.

31:01

Have you ever kept a dream journal? Um?

31:04

I never kept a journal, But I'm an

31:06

active and dreamer,

31:09

and I dream and remember

31:12

what I dream easily four nights

31:14

a week or so. You know. Always

31:16

been a very active dreamer. And the only

31:18

time I kept a bit of a journal was when I

31:21

was doing some dream work with my therapist.

31:24

Would you say that a song comes up like a dream

31:26

comes up? Is there a relationship? No.

31:30

All the years that I've followed my dreams,

31:32

I've written one song out of a dream that

31:35

was worth anything, and it's just a little

31:37

sleeper on a record called working

31:39

on a Dream as a matter of fact, called

31:41

Surprise Surprise. It's a nice little song,

31:44

and I actually came up with

31:46

it. Usually when you're dreaming, if you

31:48

write something, you think it's phenomenal, and

31:50

then you wake up and you actually play

31:53

it and it's not very good at all. You

31:55

know the dream, and the dream enhances

31:57

your experience of it.

31:59

There was literally just one song where

32:01

it paid off in the end. How

32:04

much of who you are came

32:07

from what you've learned versus

32:10

inborn, that's

32:13

probably a fifty fifty. I'd say you know

32:17

nurture and nature, I would I would say

32:20

that you come out with a certain

32:22

personality, and that personality

32:26

infects everything you do,

32:29

your behavior, and what you

32:31

create for the rest of your life. Then

32:33

you learn your craft, and

32:36

you process who

32:39

you are through your craft and

32:42

through the mechanics of what you've learned. But

32:44

I think the essence of who

32:47

you are comes is with you at birth.

32:50

I think it can be distorted. You

32:53

can irreparably harm that person

32:56

and you can do great destruction

32:59

to it, and in which case your life will

33:01

take different paths. But if

33:03

it's even remotely nurtured. I believe

33:06

that there's such a it's such a strong

33:08

force that it's going to push through and

33:11

you're going to find some expression for it in

33:14

some form as as as life goes

33:16

as your life goes by, you know. But

33:19

I kind of go half and half with that

33:21

because I got into, say

33:23

a lot of noir writing and film noir,

33:25

and there you get Nebraska and goes

33:28

to Tom Jod and Devils

33:30

and Dust where I write a lot of noir stories

33:34

in my in my narrative writing

33:36

and the kind of narrative writing that I do,

33:38

So uh, that

33:41

comes from just what I was attracted

33:43

to. But but also then

33:45

I'd have to say, but that really came

33:47

out of the Irish part of my personality.

33:50

That that that I was was

33:52

given from my father, So you can trace

33:54

it immediately back to your

33:56

your birth. Also, what was the music

33:59

playing around your house when you were growing up? No

34:01

music, real music, No

34:03

no music, no books, no films. It

34:06

was strictly television and Top forty

34:08

radio. When did you first start

34:10

playing piano? I was really young. My

34:13

my aunt had a piano in

34:15

her fourier and we would visit

34:17

my Italian grandmother who

34:19

lived to be a hundred years old, every Sunday.

34:22

And so when my mother was upstairs with her

34:24

mother, because they only spoke Italian,

34:27

I was downstairs in the fourier tinkling

34:30

around on my aunt's piano

34:32

and I started to make some noise

34:35

out of it, and so she said, here, I'm going to give you a key to

34:37

the house, and when you leave school,

34:39

if you want, you can come into the

34:41

house and play the piano. And so I

34:43

started to come home from school and I go

34:45

to my aunt's house. Nobody was there,

34:47

and I would just start practicing the piano.

34:50

I was in my teens, and I

34:52

became a relatively

34:55

proficient accompanyist. You know, nothing

34:57

special, but I can accompany myself relatively

35:00

well. You said you wrote the songs

35:02

were born to run on the piano. Is

35:04

that typical for you or is that

35:06

unusual to write a whole album

35:08

on piano. I haven't done

35:10

it in a long time. This record, A

35:13

Letter to You was primarily on guitar. Back

35:15

in that time, I wrote Racing in the Street. A song

35:17

called Racing in the Street was on piano. I

35:20

probably that was That was a bit of

35:22

a unique record in that I wrote a lot

35:24

of but if you go back and hear all the musical

35:27

introductions and things, you'll see how it was

35:29

piano based. How many

35:31

songs have you written that you haven't

35:33

released. Oh,

35:35

at least a hundred. Wow, you

35:38

know, and we already put out a big

35:40

six to seventy box set of stuff

35:43

from the vault, you know, ten years ago. But

35:45

I still have tons of stuff left. Are

35:47

you writing all the time? No?

35:50

I write very rarely, and

35:54

I didn't write a rock song in seven

35:56

years before I wrote this batch in ten days.

35:59

So I write when the writing is

36:01

there and when I'm sort of inspired,

36:03

and I don't worry about not writing. You

36:06

never had that kind of crisis moment, panic

36:08

moment you think the well is dry.

36:11

Of course you have that all the time. But

36:14

you said you never worry about not writing. You

36:17

manage your anxiety. Well. Is that it? Yeah,

36:19

I've I have that all the time, and

36:21

I'm used to that feeling, you

36:24

know, so so in a

36:26

sense when I feel like that, and

36:28

you always feel like that, after you've written

36:30

a good song, you go, oh, I hope that's not the last

36:32

one, you know, But I've

36:34

kind of gotten used to that being part

36:36

of the natural state of writer's

36:39

consciousness, you know in

36:41

that Uh, it's such a magic

36:43

trick and you and you and you are it's

36:45

so out of your control, even after

36:48

all the craft that you've learned, that

36:51

you know, you just don't know how you do it. And

36:53

so, uh, you know, I can

36:55

sit here and say, gee, I'd like to write another

36:58

album, you know, but uh, I

37:02

know it'll come along at some point. I don't

37:04

know how or when, So I'm

37:06

both. I guess the best way to explain it

37:09

was, I'm comfortable with the anxiety.

37:12

Does it usually come with

37:14

one song? Is that? Is that how it starts?

37:16

If you haven't written for a while, will a

37:18

song come? It'll come with a

37:21

song, and if it's a good song, and

37:23

if it's if it's working around

37:25

a theme you haven't worked before. Like

37:27

what I did on this record, I took as my subject

37:30

music itself and rock and roll

37:33

itself as an idea, and

37:35

uh, the ideas of bands themselves

37:38

as an idea. And I've never written about that subject

37:40

before. So when I locked onto

37:42

that first thing, I realized

37:44

there was a small but

37:47

deep well of other songs that

37:49

I that I had and things I had to say about

37:51

that idea and about the passing

37:53

of time and losing band members and losing

37:56

old friends, and what it's like at

37:58

this age to be doing in my line

38:00

of work. So uh yeah,

38:03

if you're lucky, you know you'll you'll lock

38:05

onto something and more

38:07

than you will tap

38:10

a little vein and more than one song

38:12

will come out. Did the subject

38:14

matter come before the first song or

38:17

did the song come and give you the subject

38:19

matter? The circumstances

38:21

came before the song. I had a very close friend

38:23

who passed away who was the

38:25

last besides me, was the

38:28

last member of my first band, so that left

38:30

me as the only surviving member. And

38:33

I thought about that a lot.

38:35

I didn't think about it in the sense

38:37

okay, now I'm going to write some music about

38:39

this. But I thought about it a lot,

38:42

and then a song came out. You

38:44

know, little

38:47

strange things happened. I had a kid give me

38:49

a guitar outside of the Broadway

38:51

Theater and an Italian kid was standing

38:53

there one night and he had a guitar in

38:55

his stand and I thought he wanted me to sign it.

38:58

So they said no, no, no, no, no no, no

39:00

blues blues, this is for you. We had a made

39:02

for you, and I

39:04

took it and on the way home I

39:06

looked at it and it was made from beautiful wood.

39:09

It played gorgeously and sounded

39:11

wonderful, and I left it in my living room.

39:14

And that was the guitar

39:16

that most of the songs came out of. So, uh,

39:20

you know, it was another bit

39:22

of lucky happenstance, you know.

39:25

Would you say most of the albums had

39:27

a triggering moment, like either

39:32

some life experience that starts

39:34

the first song that leads to the journey

39:37

of the album. Yeah, I

39:39

would say that perhaps,

39:41

you know, But also it's sort of like there's

39:44

car. You start your car and it runs,

39:46

Oh great, an album comes out. You

39:48

start your car, it runs for half

39:50

an hour, breaks down, doesn't

39:53

run for two weeks, started again, written

39:56

nothing again. Nothing.

39:59

Records have made like that, you know, where

40:02

I've written a song, I've

40:04

written six songs that I think

40:06

are really record worthy,

40:08

and then I spent a year trying to write

40:10

six more. You know. So

40:14

it's simply not predictable,

40:17

and you have to get used to withstanding

40:19

that anxiety, and you have to get comfortable

40:22

with it. Because born in the USA,

40:24

I think I wrote eight or nine of those songs,

40:27

and then and then spent a year

40:30

waiting for Dancing in the Dark, Bobby

40:32

Jean and No Surrender,

40:35

and Wow, that was just the

40:37

way it went. I didn't have an album until I had that

40:39

music, even if I had nine good

40:41

songs sitting there. We'll be back with

40:43

more from Bruce Springsteen. After a quick

40:45

break, We're

40:51

back with the rest of Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell's

40:53

conversation with Bruce Springstein. How

40:56

many people were in the original E Street

40:58

Band? The original E Street Band

41:00

was a five piece band. There was one

41:03

keyboard, No, yeah, one

41:05

keyboard, and then I played keyboards. Sometimes

41:07

there was a keyboard, a guitar, a

41:09

bass player, a drummer, and a saxophonist.

41:12

It was a little club rock

41:14

and soul band. And when

41:16

did it start expanding? The last time

41:18

I saw you play, I think there were It felt like

41:21

there were more people on stage than I could count. The

41:23

last time. We might

41:25

have carried horns, horns and singers

41:27

on that tour. Generally, the band,

41:30

the stable membership

41:32

of the band is myself,

41:35

Steve van Zette on the guitar, Nils Lofgren

41:38

on the guitar, Gary Tallon on the

41:40

bass, Max Weinberg on the drums, Charlie

41:42

Jordano on the organ, Roy Bitten

41:44

on the piano, and Jake Clemens

41:46

on the saxophone. I think that's nine

41:49

people, and that's the hardcore of the

41:51

E Street Band. Now do you recall

41:53

what was going on the first time you decided

41:55

not to make an album with the East Street Band. Let

41:58

me think that would have been Nebraska,

42:01

I guess. And I

42:03

was planning to make Nebraska with the East Street

42:05

Band, but what I ended up

42:07

with came about us being such an accident.

42:10

I ended up with a cassette that I had in my

42:12

back pocket that I carried around for several

42:15

months while trying to rerecord

42:17

that music with the E Street Band in

42:20

the studio, and everything we record

42:22

it sounded too slick, it sounded too

42:25

bright, you know, and and

42:27

I lost all the mystery that

42:29

came out of the happy accidents that occurred

42:31

in my little bedroom. So eventually,

42:34

after trying for quite a while, I

42:36

just pulled the tape out and said, this is it.

42:38

This is the record. It's either going to come out on cassette

42:40

or on vinyl. And that's

42:43

and and that's the way

42:45

it was. And then after that, solo

42:48

records came up, just to get some relief

42:50

from working with the band. Initially, the next solo

42:52

record I made was Tunnel of Love, which

42:55

I made in my garage with me and another guy,

42:57

and I played all the instruments, but it

42:59

was just the relief to sort of get away

43:01

from the pressure of having to record

43:03

with the band and having to just

43:05

use this these particular musicians,

43:08

this set of instrumentation. I

43:10

needed to have more freedom than that, and so

43:13

it just came around very naturally. Is

43:15

Nebraska the only album that you ever

43:17

made that you didn't know you were making

43:19

the album while you were making it? Uh?

43:22

Yeah, yeah, I've I've made

43:24

other There's a record called Devils and

43:26

Dust that but

43:29

no I knew I was recording for something then. But

43:31

Nebraska was really where I was just

43:34

trying to make a demo to see if the songs

43:36

were any good, and I ended up making an album

43:38

amazing. I remember, as

43:40

a fan of yours, the album that

43:42

took me by surprise was Nebraska because

43:45

it was the first time I had seen the

43:48

Irish side of you and the

43:50

adoption of this quintessentially America.

43:52

I mean I thought of you as you know, ethnic

43:55

New Jersey, immigrant kind

43:57

of America, and then all of a sudden you were playing

44:01

Heartland character. Yeah,

44:03

and that took me by I mean, I was blown away

44:05

by the album, but it took me by surprise.

44:08

I'm curious did it take lots of people by surprise?

44:10

Did you? Was that in retrospect? Was Nebraska

44:13

a hugely important kind of transition album?

44:15

It was for me because I studied

44:18

a whole I came upon a whole type of

44:20

writing that really began on

44:22

the River album. With the River and

44:25

with a song called Stolen Car, there

44:27

was a narrative type of writing, a storytelling

44:30

type of writing that that maybe

44:33

would go back to Woody Guthrie or or

44:36

Talking Blues or but basically

44:39

it was it was inspired by

44:42

by books and cinema

44:44

that I was interested in at that moment, and

44:47

also of creating a character

44:49

that was wider than just the character

44:52

that came out of New Jersey, that

44:54

was just a broader American voice

44:58

I was interested in at that time.

45:01

So, yeah, the record came out, people didn't

45:03

know what to make of it. It got a little

45:05

bit of airplay. It got a lot of nice

45:07

reviews, and I didn't tour

45:09

on it, and it disappeared rather

45:12

shortly. I'm very surprised to how you say it

45:14

disappeared, because I feel like it's one of

45:16

the records that has had the greatest long term

45:18

Yeah, I'm just me sort of commercially,

45:20

you know, uh, but but it has.

45:23

If I meet young a lot of young people, that's

45:25

their record for one reason or another. Maybe

45:27

because it came up shortly

45:29

after the punk revolution, and I've seen

45:32

it described as one of the first punk

45:34

acoustic albums. You know, so's

45:37

it sort of is in a funny way, and that it

45:40

was completely done at home. Do

45:42

it yourself cost a thousand bucks

45:44

little four track tape player mixed

45:46

onto a beatbox through a Gibson guitar.

45:49

Ecoplex that was that

45:51

was running slow, and just

45:53

this mysterious creation came

45:55

out of it. You know, do you think that the

45:57

kinds of people who are were attracted to that

46:00

record and to the subsequent iversh

46:02

side, if you want to use that paradigm, are

46:04

different kind of fan for

46:07

that music than you are for your for

46:09

the other kinds of music. Yeah.

46:11

Yeah, When I play I have a lot of different

46:13

types of audiences, you know, And

46:15

I believe I have an audience that's probably

46:18

interested in that sort of what I do and

46:20

maybe a little less of the electric

46:22

side of what I do. Though,

46:24

I think I've an audience that pretty

46:27

much follows me through through both iterations

46:29

of my creative life.

46:32

But but I'm very conscious at night, when

46:34

we come out in the stadium or in an

46:36

arena of the fact that i'm playing.

46:38

I'm playing to casual listeners, I'm

46:41

playing to hardcore listeners,

46:45

and so I try to build

46:47

a show that sort of addresses those

46:50

things, you know, but I

46:52

play to I have to be aware that I'm playing to a

46:54

lot of different audiences at once. Do

46:57

you remember what the first song you wrote for Nebraska

46:59

was? I believe it was Nebraska

47:02

itself. This is an a side,

47:04

but I love I love Nebraska

47:06

so completely, and it was my

47:09

moment when I came for the Italian

47:11

and stayed for the for the irishman um

47:14

and but with Nebraska, the

47:17

Frankie and Johnny song redeems

47:19

the whole album. Oh

47:22

it's I always it was always the one that stuck

47:24

up a hit because it's the one where the guy does

47:26

the he does the moral he's the he

47:28

does the morally right thing. Man

47:31

stick like man gives up on his family,

47:33

he ain't no good whatever the whatever that line is. The

47:36

rest is about these people who have somehow kind

47:38

of fallen away or and then

47:40

and then in the middle of it you have the sheriff who understands

47:42

it is his connection to his brought up

47:45

is more important than his badge. And it's just

47:47

I just thought that was suddenly this like this ray

47:50

of sunshine comes

47:52

through in that and it just put that

47:54

album on a different level for me. Well,

47:57

the the whole record is about

47:59

a fallen world. You know, we

48:01

all have to live in that

48:04

song. You're right, there's a little bit

48:06

of redemption in it, and it's

48:09

one of my favorite songs on the record, Highway Patrolman.

48:13

More than a little bit, wait, Bruce, more

48:15

than a little bit. A lot of it it is. There's

48:18

a whole lot of redemption that's Jesus on the Cross

48:20

in that album. That's like, yeah,

48:24

yeah, I hear you on

48:27

the subject of Catholicism. Since

48:29

we're s dancing around it, you said

48:31

in a conversation with Martin Chris scrase.

48:33

Last year you were talking about how much of

48:35

your work is informed by having gone

48:38

to Catholic school, and then

48:40

we have that John Hammond comment about I knew you were

48:42

a Catholic. Can you put your can

48:44

we can you put your finger on what

48:46

is the what is the Catholic

48:49

part of of your music? Well,

48:51

you know, I guess if I look

48:53

back, it was great

48:55

fear of a spiritual darkness is

48:59

impressed upon you when you're very,

49:01

very young. That's one thing. Perhaps

49:05

the ability to work towards a spiritual

49:07

light is also impressed rest upon

49:09

you. So these

49:11

those are very high stakes.

49:15

And if you live your life with

49:17

with with those stakes on the table,

49:20

it'll be an interesting experience, you

49:22

know, And that

49:25

may be at the center of what

49:27

my Catholic upbringing does for

49:30

my music and perhaps

49:32

for me also, you know, that

49:35

might explain some of it. I was gonna

49:37

I was gonna ask Bruce if you

49:39

if you wanted to play another song

49:41

off this Thist album and give us a little

49:43

bit of the of the backstory. Okay,

49:46

let me let me see what I can find here.

49:53

This was the song that kicked

49:58

off the writing for the entire

50:00

record because it was most directly about

50:03

my friend George who passed away, and

50:05

about those particular

50:07

time in my in my playing life.

50:11

Everything everything came out of that song.

50:14

All the rest of the songs came out of the

50:16

world that I began to create

50:18

in that song. You talked earlier about

50:20

writing for the band, and

50:23

you imagine the song in your head before you

50:25

record it with the band, is

50:27

the mission to get it to sound like what you

50:29

hear in your head or you sometimes surprised

50:32

by what the band contributes in

50:34

the process of making the record. Well,

50:36

I try to get it to sound like I hear

50:39

it in my head, but I don't limit it to what

50:41

I'm hearing in my head. Usually

50:43

you don't get it to sound like you hear it

50:45

in your head. You know. It's sort of a

50:47

guide, you know, But when it works,

50:49

as it worked on this record, all

50:52

I knew is like, yeah, these are rock songs.

50:54

I want them to sound kind of glorious.

50:56

And so

50:59

when the band came in and performed them,

51:02

this was a case where I got more out of

51:05

you know, we have I have a good producer, we have good

51:08

recording technique right now, and

51:10

the sound of the record is really quite lovely,

51:12

and so I got. I got

51:14

a little more out of it than I might have been

51:16

imagining when I came in, and that's always a sweet

51:19

surprise. I think it's it's the

51:21

best band record I've

51:23

made with my band in a in a

51:25

very long time, you know. So I'm I'm

51:27

very, very excited about

51:29

it, and I can't wait to get out in one

51:32

of these days and actually play it for my fans.

51:35

Once knock on Wood COVID passes,

51:38

it will be how many years since you and

51:40

the band have been touring. I

51:43

believe we haven't toured now in

51:45

two going on three,

51:48

so I think

51:50

the last time we toured was twenty seventeen,

51:53

perhaps, you know, counting our lucky

51:55

stars. I'm looking towards twenty

51:58

twenty two. I can't imagine there's really

52:00

going to be anything going on this next year,

52:03

and I'm hoping if I think, if things

52:05

work out ideally, twenty

52:07

twenty two is would be the earth earliest

52:09

that you could expect people are going to feel

52:11

comfortable going shoulder to shoulder again anywhere.

52:14

Yeah, and you've you've never gotten tired

52:17

of touring? No, I love to travel.

52:19

I like staying in hotels I

52:21

like being in strange in different

52:23

towns, and

52:26

I still like it as much as I did when

52:29

I was young, though I'm very happy

52:31

now to actually have a real home to come back

52:33

to. Yeah, beautiful. You mentioned

52:36

in the I think it was in the Broadway

52:38

piece you talked about blank

52:40

pages and the feeling

52:43

of having nothing when you were young,

52:45

the sense of not having anything to do, and

52:48

feeling this freedom going

52:50

forward even though there was there was nothing really

52:52

to look forward too, but you just had a sense of freedom.

52:54

So sure, do you ever want to re

52:57

embrace with that and stop

52:59

working and create a new

53:01

blank page and imagine

53:05

a life of just whatever

53:07

that would be freedom. I would

53:10

have to ruin my entire existence

53:12

to do that, which I'm

53:14

sort of not exactly willing

53:17

to do at this late date, you

53:19

know. But but

53:21

I still have that sense of

53:24

my life makes room for those

53:26

blank pages within

53:29

a certain set of limitations,

53:32

and that satisfies

53:34

me. You know that this whole album

53:36

and experience with the band was

53:38

an entirely blank page that we got

53:40

to fill from absolutely nothing,

53:42

So I'm satisfied

53:45

with that. It's kind of this kind

53:47

of a personal question. I love the

53:49

Broadway Show. I really love the Broadway

53:51

show, and I want to talk about how that came about, what

53:54

gave you the idea. But the personal part of it is

53:56

you talk a lot about being a con

53:59

man of sorts or a phony in you

54:02

start. You start the show that way, and

54:04

you talk about how the songs are not

54:06

necessarily representative of your life, but

54:08

more maybe if your dad, or of things

54:10

that you've seen, the situate, your situation

54:12

growing up. With the stories,

54:15

the news stories that you told in the play,

54:18

are they all really

54:20

your experiences or are those also

54:23

embellished? Well, I

54:26

would say that I

54:28

have a funny job, and that when you write

54:30

and sing something and

54:33

you do it really well, it's so

54:35

credible that people simply believe

54:37

it's you. Of

54:40

the time. There is an emotional

54:42

truth, a spiritual truth

54:45

that you have to draw up

54:48

from inside of your essence

54:50

for that piece of work to be credible.

54:54

But how you said it, the

54:56

incidences, the details,

54:58

the story itself can be

55:00

something a complete work of imagination,

55:04

you know, So you have to be able to draw

55:06

on your own inner truth. But at

55:08

the same time you can dress it up

55:10

in any monkey suit that you want.

55:13

And I often do you know and

55:16

So writing is largely

55:19

an act of the imagination, but

55:22

which is where you get your your

55:25

your geography or your detail

55:27

of character. But

55:30

for that character in geography to

55:32

come to life into a real, breathing

55:34

world, you've got to tap into

55:37

your own true inner

55:39

life. So if you when you're

55:41

doing both of those things, you're writing

55:44

well, beautiful, beautiful. So tell

55:46

me about how the Broadway Show came about. Broadway

55:48

Show came about by accident. I

55:50

was invited to the White House by Barack

55:53

Obama to perform in

55:55

his last two weeks that he was

55:58

at the White House. And so I said, I don't want

56:00

to bring the bands too big a hassle. I'll

56:03

play some acoustic songs. And then

56:05

I said, well, what am I gonna do. I'll read

56:07

from my book and I'll play some acoustics songs.

56:10

And so I came into the studio

56:12

here and I spent about two hours picking

56:14

out segments of the book and then a song to

56:17

go with it. And

56:19

then I realized I had to slightly rewrite

56:21

the book so it sounded colloquial.

56:24

Prose writing and speaking are not the

56:27

same thing. So I

56:29

rewrote the pieces a little bit, so it sounded

56:32

just like I was speaking off the top of my head.

56:34

I went and I performed it at the White House,

56:36

about ninety minutes of the play, which

56:39

I put together in about four hours here

56:41

in the studio, and at

56:44

the end of the play, Barack Obama got on The

56:46

President got on stage and he says, hey, I know

56:48

you did that just for us, but that

56:50

should be a show, you know. And

56:53

so on the way back from Washington,

56:55

I was with my manager, John Landau and

56:57

my wife Patty, and we said, yeah,

56:59

that should be a show. So well,

57:02

and we started talking about a venue,

57:04

and I realized if it was going to be a show, I played

57:07

the two hundred people in the East Room, but

57:09

if it was going to be a show, I needed a very small

57:11

audience that was very controllable

57:13

or I could get an enormous amount of cooperation

57:16

and silence. And it had to be a very

57:18

intimate environment. And those jewel

57:21

Box theaters are on Broadway.

57:23

So that's how I ended up there. Was it a

57:25

fun experience, best experience

57:27

of my life, one of the greatest. Wow.

57:29

Wow, was it difficult doing the

57:32

same material day after day. I

57:35

loved it because I always

57:38

first of all, it was a world that I loved

57:40

entering. It really

57:42

got me in touch with my past, and it

57:45

was sort of summational as sort of this

57:48

is a little bit of what I've learned up

57:50

to now. And I

57:52

enjoyed inhabiting those characters every

57:55

night, and I

57:58

found something in it every night, and right

58:00

up to the very last night, I was having

58:02

the time of my life. Were the

58:04

audiences consistently reacting

58:08

in the same spots or might

58:10

depending on the night? Did different

58:13

things move people differently? Yeah,

58:16

the audiences would vary night to night. You

58:18

know, some nights

58:20

a little roundy, or some nights you know a little more

58:23

expressive, other nights listening a little

58:25

deeper. There

58:27

was a level, a general level

58:29

of consistency that I found comforting

58:31

and good to play too. But

58:34

there's no I've never played the two audiences

58:36

that are alike, not on any night of any

58:39

night of my work life. I've never seen two

58:41

audiences that are the same or where

58:43

the alchemy is the same two

58:46

nights in a row. It just doesn't. It's impossible

58:48

to happen. Did you feel more of a sense

58:50

of direct communication with the audience

58:52

than you would in a concert set up? No,

58:55

not necessarily. The mechanics

58:58

are very, very different, but

59:00

you still have to connect your

59:03

mind. You have to meet

59:05

mind to mind and heart

59:07

to heart and soul to soul. Whether

59:09

you're at Giants Stadium

59:12

or whether you're in a nine hundred seat theater

59:15

on Broadway, the mechanics

59:17

of connection are the same. You

59:21

know, you've got to draw on your emotional life, your

59:23

spiritual life, your intellectual self, your physical

59:26

self when you play with the band,

59:28

and you know you've just got to meet

59:31

that audience face to face as

59:34

intensely as you can. So

59:37

even though the situations are very different,

59:40

the fundamental act is very similar.

59:42

I'm so happy that you made it. I really am.

59:44

It's like, thank you. It feels good. Thank

59:47

you. What's your favorite

59:49

and least favorite part of your job. I

59:51

suppose the least favorite would be the

59:55

prying into your private life, which

59:58

I don't experience much anymore because I'm

1:00:00

pretty much old and people

1:00:02

are in and people are a lot less interested

1:00:05

in you, you know. But when I was

1:00:07

younger, I really

1:00:10

raise the level of my anxiety, and I

1:00:13

uh, I resented

1:00:16

that a little bit, but I learned to live with it because

1:00:18

that's that this as they say in

1:00:20

the Godfather, this is the life we've chosen, And

1:00:23

uh so that would be my least

1:00:26

favorite. My most favorite is simply

1:00:28

getting on stage and playing. That's that's the

1:00:31

you know, and having that moment with the audience and

1:00:33

with my band and or with or

1:00:35

with the on on Broadway, with

1:00:37

the situation like that.

1:00:39

That's that's the thing I love to do best. Beautiful,

1:00:42

Well, how do we do, guys? I think we

1:00:44

did great. I can't tell you

1:00:46

how how much fun this has been and an

1:00:49

honor great man. I I'm

1:00:51

a fan of both you guys, and I had

1:00:53

a great time doing it. Thanks

1:00:58

to the Boss for taking us deep into his writing

1:01:00

process and for planes and music. You

1:01:03

can hear his new album Letter to You, along

1:01:05

with all of our favorite Springsteen songs on

1:01:07

my playlist at broken podcast

1:01:09

dot com, and be sure to subscribe

1:01:11

to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com

1:01:14

slash broken record Podcasts. There

1:01:16

you can find extended cuts of new and old

1:01:18

episodes. Broken Record is produced

1:01:20

with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel,

1:01:23

Artine Gonzalez, Eric Sandler,

1:01:26

and his executive Produced by Melobell.

1:01:29

Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries

1:01:31

and If you like Broken Record, please remember to

1:01:33

share, rate, and review our show on your

1:01:35

podcast staff. I'm Justin Richmond

1:01:38

bass